


Godsend

by AliNasweter



Series: Long and Peculiar Story [1]
Category: Kingdom Come: Deliverance (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Emotionally Repressed, F/M, Gen, Spoilers, Teen Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 21:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15446340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliNasweter/pseuds/AliNasweter
Summary: “You know how it is. We were young… it happened. Then your father… I mean Martin came along, and took care of both of you.”It’s the early time of the year 1384 and young Radzig Kobyla finds out he is going to be a father.Spoilers for the game – if you did the spying mission in Vranik, rest assured and proceed.





	Godsend

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Dar z nebes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15395622) by [AliNasweter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliNasweter/pseuds/AliNasweter). 



> \- This story takes place in 1384  
> \- The exact date of Radzig Kobyla’s birth is unknown, therefore I work (on my responsibility) with the year 1369 (so in the time the game takes place he is 34 years old) – in this story he is 15 years old  
> \- The same goes for Henry, his birth is unknown but I’ve guessed he might be 19 years in the game (1403)  
> \- Martin (the blacksmith, Henry’s father) is older than Radzig – he is in his early twenties in this story, born in 1360  
> \- Henry’s mother’s name is Anne here, she is of the same age as Radzig
> 
> Please, if you notice any mistakes, point them out for me. Thank you!

The sound of her voice nearly made him fall over his feet; he’d been focused on the sunset so he completely forgot he wasn’t on one of his favorite evening rides, as he sometimes was when he couldn’t get away from his duties throughout the day. Today it was especially difficult: his father insisted that he prepared for his journey to Kuttenberg. His men were nervous and jumpy, just a month ago they had to walk through the country for no better reason than one old man’s stubbornness. Plus, in the group of twelve soldiers he traveled with, there were at least five who hated horses and would rather walk on their hands than ride. Of course, it was their duty to do so anyway but the process was very frustrating and very slow. Nevertheless, the lords were always short of good men, he couldn’t really pick better ones. And to be honest, he grew fond of them over the years he’d known them.

“You get lost in your thoughts so easily,” she laughed and he’d waited for her to settle in the hay before he joined her. “I could easily mount up your horse and ride away, you wouldn’t notice.” He would react in some way if he didn’t notice the words were said with forced ease. He couldn't decide whether they were meant to divert his or her attention.

“You were always different from the other villagers, Anne,” he spoke quietly, and instead of the usual light caress he would afford, he just smiled this time, noticing the change between them. “You always try to beat around the bush because you think I wouldn’t know what to do with the straightforwardness.”

The brown-haired girl, still disheveled from the all-day work on the fields, just narrowed her eyes at him, calculating. They were beautiful eyes, dark brown, kind and loving.

“I am with child,” she said. Without mercy, she scattered every one of her prepared speeches and looked the boy straight in the eyes. Her apparent confidence was replaced by confusion. “Radzig? Do you hear… are you with me?” And just then when he’d felt her rough hands on his cheeks he woke up from the trance he’d fallen into. To his surprise, there were no reproaches or threats. She gave him her gentle, kind smile. “See, that’s why I have to beat around the bush.”

He could imagine it easily enough – there is no use for lies, of course, he had imagined it many times before. A wife and children. Sometimes the bride had no face he would care enough to describe, sometimes it was Anne smiling back at him, full of energy, proud of her sons and daughters. In the safety of his own mind there were always more children, at least three older boys so there was someone who could protect the family and inherit when their parents’ time would come, and two girls so the common sense and order could be kept in his household.

Training with wooden swords, careful and uncertain ride on a horse, the clumsy effort of pulling the bowstring, evenings spent together with a book, trying to decipher all the letters and words. He started thinking about a possible person who would be able to draw the birds from the woods so the children could know them better not only by sound but the looks as well. He was always very fond of them but never tried to draw…

_Gone._

Everything was gone – just like that, with the same abruptness of blowing off the candle, snapping the fingers. Anne was watching him closely, the sun was setting and had no care for a boy whose dreams were being crushed. He blinked at the girl. His horse behind their backs kept on chewing the hay, completely unperturbed. The obnoxious sounds broke the silence and he got almost annoyed by how unsuitable they were for this situation.

“I have no intentions of causing you any problems,” Anne sighed and sat further away from him. “I know that marriage with a commoner would ruin you and… I have the feeling that if my father didn’t kill me, yours certainly would.”

He felt tears itching in his eyes. A woman could give a life, and she was punished for it whenever she didn’t meet the demands of the society. That child was – _is_ going to be his, yet he would get house arrest at the very most if he were so foolish as to say that he was going to marry a poor girl from the village. Maybe his father would send him abroad, or even worse, to the monastery. Meanwhile, Anna would be facing constant ridiculing and shaming. It happened many times that the expecting mothers in her situation gave birth to an already dead child. A punishment from the God, the villagers would say. Radzig had always thought that it was the villagers’ hate and toxic words that made the women unable to give a life to a child. That all would tear apart the devil himself, let alone a pregnant woman.

He looked at the girl’s belly, seeing no difference.

“I will take care of you,” he blurted out suddenly. They could live somewhere else, far away from here, he could read and write, he would be able to make a living in Prague, yes…

“Radzig,” Anne whispered, softly but urgently, already impatient because of his constant trips into his own mind. He looked at her somehow distractedly, as if she was standing in the way of his thoughts and plans. “I don’t want to leave Skalitz. I have my family here, my mother needs my help… and I will need hers very soon. I am happy here. And I know you are as well. I’ve always had a feeling you are happier here than back home in Dvorec.”

“You…” he gulped. “You want to…”

She almost slapped him for that. Anger darkened her face, her eyes flashed with fury.

“No!” she hissed, offended, and he pulled back at that. He wasn’t really thinking about it, never would he accuse her of something _like that_ , it was just a quick insane idea, one that would be gone fast enough if she didn’t react to it. “I want that child. I will take care of it,” she continued fervently, her arms wrapped around her still flat belly. “I just came to tell you that you don’t owe me anything. You don’t have to… you don’t have to ruin your life for us.”

_Ruin?_

“You wouldn’t want me then?” he asked, still confused by her rejection. The anger on her face disappeared just as quickly as it appeared. She smiled softly again. She didn’t have to say a word. They both knew how it would have ended if they actually went with the idea of marriage and running away. They would live together without his father’s blessing. If they ran to Prague, they would have no money, no job, and before Radzig would manage to earn something, the child would be surely born by then. What if he didn’t find a proper job, what if Anne fell ill, or the child? He might become the doom of those dearest to him.

“I will take care of myself, somehow. You don’t need to worry. And… if I am not mistaken, you will be traveling a lot now, right? So, how long until you come back from Kuttenberg?” Another merciful rescue.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged and took a straw to keep his hands busy. “Every visit takes too long… either the bailiff doesn’t want to talk with a pup, how he called me the last time, so instead of a few words, he rather sends a messenger with letters all the way from Kuttenberg to Dvorec. That is quite a distance and all I have to do is wait. And if the bailiff has no problem with me or finds the matter we are discussing too trivial to annoy my father with, then it’s one of my men who gets caught up in some mess.”

“Other lords would leave them there,” she smiled, “you keep complaining about them but we both know you are fond of them.”

“I think I will leave some of them behind this time. After all those journeys I found some roads that are least likely full of bandits and thieves. The main roads are literally scattered with their camps. Those small roads in the woods are no better but when we ride through the fields, we can see a long distance in front of us and there is hardly any danger.

She frowned, her eyes full of concern. “I hope you will leave some of those… less experienced fighters.”

He laughed. “I have to change the group once in a while because when they are too long together, they start fights easily and often it happens that I am the one getting into the brawl to pull them apart. It’s understandable, though. Actually,” he took another straw just under his horse’s mouth. “There’s only one man I take with myself every time. An excellent swordsmith, and even better fighter. I owe him my life. He never told me where did he learn all that.”

“Then I am glad he will accompany you,” Anne nodded, satisfied with the compromise. Radzig, oblivious to her worries, just shook his head.

“Not this time, I am afraid,” he said, deep in his thoughts again. “The last time I lost him in Kuttenberg… it was just a moment, he disappeared and I couldn’t find him for a fortnight. If he were anyone else I would have thought he had deserted. But after that, it came to my mind that I could ask some guards and there he was, in the jail. He got into some brawl at the market, I believe… those who came out alive ended up in jail. They let him go when I proved he came with me but they banished him from the city. And I think it will do him only good if he stays here for a while. He’s been getting very… irritable of late.”

“But… but you will have some good fighters with you, right?” Anne asked. He finally noticed her worries and had to smile at her. That was the only thing she’d heard – _the best fighter stays behind this time_. She is going to be a wonderful mother. Maybe a bit too fussy, a bit too worried and definitely overprotective, but a good mother regardless. Loving and understanding. He sobered again when he remembered why they were sitting here in the first place.

“I don’t know for how long I will be gone, Anne. I will go straight to Dvorec from Kuttenberg to give the report to my uncle, and then I will come back here. By that time it will be obvious that you…” he let the end of the sentence hang in the air. Somehow he couldn’t get those words out of him.

“As I said,” thankfully, Anne interrupted him while getting up and brushing the straws off her dress, “I will take care of that. I will always like you,” she added quite suddenly as if she didn’t really know she was going to say it. Then she kneeled next to the boy again and pecked him lightly on the cheek. “Anastasia and Henry,” she whispered. “Do you like it?”

It wasn’t really a question that would need an answer if that was what the question was about. He saw it for what it really was – an invitation to their life, that of a mother and her child. He had to take a few deep breaths before he could reply: “I do.”

***

  
On the journey to Kuttenberg, he was only ambushed once, the journey from Kuttenberg to Dvorec was much worse. In three cases he got out of the fight by the skin of his teeth. The winter was coming, the bandits were scared and hungry. Many of them attacked even when outnumbered, three of them against Radzig’s six fully armed soldiers. But the growing fear of freezing and starving made them strong enough to give them some struggle. All they saw was a noble, young and seemingly inexperienced.  They couldn’t have known the boy has been trained since he was old enough to hold a sword without falling over.

His father, Jan Kobyla from Dvorec, was getting old and weak, therefore he decided to put his only son to work sooner than he’d planned. It was no easy or safe work like farming or blacksmithing. Tax collecting was extremely dangerous and even more ungrateful work; royal collectors had to be above average in combat, they needed to study diplomacy, they had to be educated and of noble blood. Constantly on the move, sleeping with their eyes open so they could always protect the royal money and transport them into the king’s safe. As long as they had the money, they were in danger.

His uncle at home in Dvorec laughed when he’d seen how nervous he was.

"Why the rush, why the rush!” he called cheerfully after him when Radzig refused the offer of dinner, breakfast, and bed. "The journey to Skalitz is long, your father will wait for a few more days."

It was almost half a year since he was last in Skalitz. Since he saw his father. Anne. How did she live now? Did she find her husband or did the villagers banish her from respectable life? What if she wasn’t even alive?

No. Her father would not allow that. He could afford to get on their bad side. People of Skalitz couldn’t really choose their merchants on the basis of their families’ sins. Whoever had vegetables sold vegetables, whoever had meat sold meat. One miller, one blacksmith, one merchant. If you didn’t come to terms with one merchant in Prague, you simply left and went to see another. But living in the country, you had to swallow your pride if you wouldn’t rather starve.

His men were tired, and he finally agreed to stay for the night. They will head back to Skalitz first thing in the morning.

***

He tried not to hurry too much. Somewhere in a realistic corner of his mind, he knew that no pregnant wife was waiting for him to come home to her, the only person who was awaiting him was his father. As far as he was concerned he had to go back to Skalitz only to report to his lord and maybe go and find out discreetly how the girl who carried his child was faring.

He couldn’t relieve himself of his father’s presence until the evening. He then went to the barracks to check the other half of his squad. He talked a bit to each one of them, greeted them and asked about the things he’d missed. One of them had broken his leg, the other poisoned himself in a dramatic attempt to get his friends’ attention, two other had fallen in love, the fifth soldier was driving everyone insane by his constant drumming on the table so he was sent to keep guard in the village, and the last one was sitting on a bench next to the stables, hidden under the wooden roof.

"I really missed you on my journey," Radzig said with a smile. "How many times have I turned my back on the enemy and forgot that you are not there," he added. It was not a reproach, but the soldier sagged down as if his lord had slated him. "Martin, are you all right?"

"I am, sir," he replied. "I was just thinking. And I’m pleased that you arrived in one piece despite my absence. I always said you just underestimate yourself, " he added with a grin. Martin was in his early twenties, he was tall and well-built, more than most of the young men of his age. His hands were strong from work and fight, and his voice was deep and rough. He had something respectable about him, people seemed to find him trustworthy and capable even before he proved them right, as he always did. And yet he never lost any sleep over what other people thought of him.

Unlike him, Radzig often fell victim to his own anxious mind. The idea of losing the respect of his men or subjects was extremely frightening at times. Martin seemed to have it even without trying, and he was only a soldier. They had this unusual bond between them. Some would call them friends, Martin always seemed to be closer to the nobleman than the other soldiers. And Radzig looked up to him as he would to his older brother if he had one. There were fondness and respect and maybe a little bit of admiration but sadly, that was not all. There was a little bit of envy as well. He couldn’t really tell why but he did his best to hide it.

 "Before you go, sir," Martin said suddenly, sounding so uncharacteristically hesitant that Radzig really started to worry that something had happened in his absence. Perhaps someone sent a letter from Kuttenberg that Martin from Dvorec deserved a noose and not freedom, even if it was freedom outside of Kuttenberg? He sat down.

"For a very long time I've been thinking about how to say this," Martin said, gaining back his confidence. "And I still cannot figure it out. I've been warned to not be too straightforward, but you know I do not know any other way.”

Radzig already knew.

He just _knew_. His heart skipped a beat, and all of a sudden he felt a cold sensation wash over him, making him shiver. The familiar words stung more than he would have ever thought possible. Martin was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice his lord’s unease.

“I met a girl and I would like to marry her. She agreed, we have her father’s blessing. But I thought that it would be better to speak to you first.”

“You don’t have to…” Radzig started shakily, but he couldn’t continue.

“You travel a lot and I was always by your side. I ask you as my lord then. Do I have your permission to marry the girl and settle down in Skalitz?”

No. No! Why you of all people?

“Of course, Martin. I will miss you very much, of course. But… maybe it will be better for you?” he forced himself to smile at him. “I think that you don’t care much for the fight, and there is nothing else awaiting you in my services.” The swordsmith looked up at him, surprised. He probably thought he was hiding his growing disgust towards violence well. “How…” Radzig cleared his throat and started again. “How are you going to live? The swordsmith has no place in the village…”

Martin smiled as if he expected the question. “The blacksmith took me as his apprentice. His daughters married off to other villages and his son died as an infant. I will work for him until I can buy his forge.”

Just like that. Excellent swordsmith, experienced fighter, and a good soldier will give up his life and start anew. He was very well aware that he will earn much less than he used to, his adventurous life will come to an end. Where there was a lust for adventure before in his eyes, all he could see now was peace. Radzig couldn’t help it, suddenly he felt it all over again. The urge to snap at him, to hurt him, to make him leave the village and never come back, to call him a thief of the life he would so like to have. Silence settled over their table.

“You asked me as your lord then,” Radzig decided to make the first step and have it finally over with. Martin was probably still under the impression that Radzig had no idea what remained to be said between them. He proved him right when he looked up again, alarm written all over his face. “As whom are you going to ask me now?”

“As the father of the child Anne carries under her heart,” the soldier replied softly.

It took all of Radzig’s self-control to not flinch at his words. On one hand, there was logic and worry about an unsecured woman, his woman. On the other hand, there were other emotions eating him alive, envy and jealousy.

“I am grateful,” he said at last. He knew what was expected of him to say and he could only hope that one day, he will feel the words too. Martin will solve all of his problems after all. He had to look at all this with a distance or he won’t make it. “Anne is a remarkable woman and she will be a wonderful wife and mother,” he added like a diplomat he was taught to be. Martin eyed him cautiously. “Just… when did you two…?”

It was still quite surprising, that a man would ask for a hand of a pregnant woman. Unheard of, actually. He had to be really in love when…

“Maybe a week after your departure,” Martin admitted. Radzig almost choked.

“You didn’t know she was pregnant then?” he breathed out, unbelieving.

“I didn’t,” the swordsmith replied calmly. He fell silent after that, just so long until the guard walking out from the stables went far enough that it was safe to continue. “She told me when I proposed.”

“So you didn’t think that it was…” This wasn’t his good day at all. His rhetoric skills were much better as long as he didn’t have to talk about his private life.

“No,” the soldier gave him one of those kind, big brother-like smiles. “We’ve never been together… like… this,” and to Radzig’s utmost surprise he actually blushed. “But everybody thinks so. The whole village threw a tantrum when I told them that I have to wait for your permission to marry but they believed you would agree when you came back. Therefore they didn’t lynch me,” he grinned nervously as if he were telling a tale at which he hoped he could sincerely laugh one day. “But I was told it’s still unforgivable to have a pregnant woman unmarried. They made an exception though. Her father, old Henry, told them he has not enough money to give his daughter so he’ll need a few months for saving. And luckily, they don’t really care as long as the child is born into a proper family.”

Radzig found himself apologizing for taking his time with the journey back, remembering his unnecessary haste. Martin smiled again. Everything was good. It turned out well in the end. For everyone involved. Anne will get a great husband, strong and capable, Martin will get a beautiful and loving wife. They both will have a child, a family, and their children two honest and caring parents. The best possible outcome.

And he… he might… as well, one day…

He thanked him again, congratulated, assured him of his attendance at their wedding, said goodbye and left.

He closed the door of his cold chamber, then warned the servants that he won’t be disturbed under any circumstances, knowing that even his father will respect his wishes, thinking his son was tired from his journey.

As the room had been gradually sinking deeper and deeper into the darkness, there he was, sitting on the edge of the cold bed, pouring one glass of wine after another until he fell into a restless sleep.


End file.
